O Dark Night
by YamiCrystalline
Summary: The musings of a Death Knight at the foot of the Citadel...


O, Dark Night…

The battle raged on, as it had for some days. The bodies of the fallen – those that were not hacked apart from war-horses or machine, where either eaten by the wretched Scourge or beginning to freeze in the frigid lands of Icecrown.

Driving his sword through a foe, a death knight pauses in the midst of the fight, eyes drinking in the scene of cold death at his feet. Bodies, those that had once been loved ones in life, were now held in the icy grip of death he once knew.

~Has it really come to this…? Our days, spent locked in combat at the foot of the Citadel..?~

A cold sigh escapes his lips, covered by the large, thick helm he wore. Looking about, he notes that the fighting has moved away somewhat, more towards the Crusade's meager camp. The helmed head tilts back to the sky, eyes barely exposed peer into to the endless vast of darkness.

~And where is the foreseen Light in this darkest night…?"~

But what did he truly hope to find up there, in the ever-clouded sky? No sun ever shone here – he knew, of course, if he turned just so… there, the direction of the Vanguard and the Crusader's Pinnacle, was the one ray of hope that shone into Icecrown.

The Crusader's and any of the other fighters, he knew, depended on that Light to keep them going. To give them hope, so that they would not fall to the despair of an icy wasteland overrun by the undead abominations.

Letting his head fall back down to the cold, barren earth, the knight gives an easy tug of his sword, the metal of the lethal weapon grating against severed bone. He did not want to look to closely to the dead around him, to the ones he knew had fought at his side, whether they had been living of the re-risen, like he. He did not want to know just yet whom he had lost to Icerown's unforgiving soil; he did not want to know who the damned Lich King could bring back to turn against him.

~Perhaps…my friends, those of you gone…I can give you the peace that I was refused…~

A funeral by fire was truly the only way to keep one from being risen again as a servant of the Lich King. Burn the whole field, if he had to…he would see no more risen to the other side.

Turning, the death knight was at least a bit more careful to step around what bodies he could, nudging some with the flat of his blade to search for any who may have been turned, or the scarcer few who may yet live. A moment later, he regretted looking down, and noted a twinge of pain in his long-frozen heart, to see the face of one he had known, eyes still filled with horror, even in death. Another, not far from the first, also dead. Another and another, some he had been close to, both in life and undeath, and others he had fought side by side in battle with.

All dead.

~ One day, I will try to join you. ~

Fordring spoke daily of the Alliance and the Horde working together, supposedly the only way to finally overcome the Scourge forces. At last the day came, under the banner of the Crusade, did the 'great' paladin lead combined forces to the Citadel at last.

And still the fighting goes on, both outside and inside the great Lich King's mighty fortress. No one had yet heard what horrors lay in wait inside the vast halls – no one had heard if the hero's who had dared to be the attack force still lived.

All those who still fought outside could do was wait. Wait, and hope, and pray, and fight on.

A turn of the head – somehow, in his musings, he had made it back to the camp. A sweet, solitary moment the Scourge gave them as the undead retreated. It never lasted, they would be back soon enough. Wounded lay everywhere, priests, healer-paladins, druids, and shamans all alike ran about to do what they could for the wounded and dying.

Somewhere, a sing voice rose about the chaotic scuffling of the chaos of the camp in song.

"O Light, we pray for thee; now in our darkest night. O Light, we pray for thee, guide us now, in darkest day…"

Slowly, a second voice joined in the hymn – it was one the death knight hadn't heard in a long, long time. Sometimes sung in prayer, other times sung to guide the dead to whatever afterlife they believed in.

"O Light, bring us home, leave the darkness behind…"

The hymn, slow and haunting, was cut off by a hellish shriek – a gargoyle, flying overhead. The Scourge forces came surging towards the camp again…Hefting his great sword, the knight rejoined the forces of the living, to fight once more.

~End~


End file.
